… China’s Ministry of Railways has unveiled one of the world’s most ambitious infrastructure projects. The rail link will connect Xinjiang via Kyrgyzstan, ultimately to Germany and even on to London by 2025.

China’s plans include linking the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway into the Eurasian high-speed rail corridor.

China is also building twelve new highways to economically tie Kyrgyzstan and its neighbors by modern roadways with Xinjiang. At some point US militarization of Kyrgyzstan becomes a Chinese national security threat. An economic counter move by China to increase its presence in the country is now clearly on the table. [11]

As further indication of Beijing’s concern to have stability in its neighborhood, China has recently stepped up its economic activities in Afghanistan.

As friction increases between Afghan President Karzai and the Obama Administration, relations are clearly warming with Karzai and Beijing. On March 24, Hamid Karzai and Chinese President Hu Jintao signed new economic agreements in Beijing on trade and investment, while agreeing to strengthen triangular cooperation with Pakistan, which traditionally has had close ties to China.

China is already the largest investor in the Afghan economy. Its Metallurgical Group Corporation won a bid in 2007 to invest $3.5 billion in Afghanistan’s Aynak copper mine –one of the largest in the world. [12]

And another prize plum is the possibility for Chinese companies to develop Afghanistan’s estimated 1.6 billion barrels of oil and 440 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas, as well as large deposits of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, iron ore and gold. [13]

For China, both Afghanistan and Pakistan are part of its key transportation and trade links to Iran. Beijing has completed a port at Gwadar in Pakistan, allowing it to import 60 percent of its oil coming from the Middle East. China now plans to connect the Gwadar Port with Xinjiang through Afghanistan to secure a more efficient delivery of energy resources to fuel its booming economy. Stability in Kyrgyzstan is essential to China in this broader context. [14]

In our next part we examine the essential geopolitical importance of Kyrgyzstan for Russia, the second geopolitical player in the new three-dimensional chess game for control of Eurasia’s land space and its economic and political future.